Julian Shapiro is a startup founder and a developer. His first startup, NameLayer, was acquired by Techstars. His current focus is advancing motion design on the web. Follow him for tweets on UI animation: @Shapiro.

There’s a false belief in the web development community that CSS animation is the only performant way to animate on the web. This myth has coerced many developers to abandon JavaScript-based animation altogether, thereby (1) forcing themselves to manage complex UI interaction within style sheets, (2) locking themselves out of supporting Internet Explorer 8 and 9, and (3) forgoing the beautiful motion design physics that are possible only with JavaScript.

Reality check: JavaScript-based animation is often as fast as CSS-based animation — sometimes even faster. CSS animation only appears to have a leg up because it’s typically compared to jQuery’s $.animate(), which is, in fact, very slow. However, JavaScript animation libraries that bypass jQuery deliver incredible performance by avoiding DOM manipulation as much as possible. These libraries can be up to 20 times faster than jQuery.

From a motion design perspective, Facebook.com is phenomenally static. It's purposefully dumbed down for the broadest levels of compatibility and user comfort. Facebook’s iOS apps, on the other hand, are fluid. They prioritize the design of motion; they feel like living, breathing apps.

This article serves to demonstrate that this dichotomy does not need to exist; websites can benefit from the same level of interactive and performant motion design found on mobile apps. Before diving into examples, let's first address why motion design is so beneficial.

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